CoolBreeze44 wrote:Edwards plays pretty much how you would expect a guy to play on a team without coaching and leadership. His talent is genuine, but he doesn't have the benefit of a good culture around him. He simply shouldn't be taking so many bad shots. But it doesn't appear the organization is doing anything to mold him. But it's what we've come to expect around here.
I disagree, Cool. Edwards' play with the Wolves thus far reflects his play in college. He's a high-volume, but highly inefficient scorer, who misses a lot of shots, doesn't get to the line as much as he should and doesn't play well defensively. His NBA shooting percentages are essentially identical to his percentages in college, except that his three-point percentage with the Wolves is actually slightly higher. The highlight reels show Edwards to be immensely talented, but his NBA highlights are no different than many of the highlights of his play in college. He's a gifted athlete with an NBA body and a nice skill set - ballhandling, passing and a beautiful step-back move to get open shots. But he continues to be dogged by his tendency to miss shots and lose focus on defense.
If you're the top player in the draft and you fail because of the culture of the team that drafted you, then you shouldn't have been the top pick in the draft. No team had a worse culture than the Bulls team that drafted Michael Jordan - we'll talking cocaine addicts among other things. Michael Jordan ended up changing the culture of that team. What really happened was that Jordan, Pippen and Grant (along with some other post-Jordan acquisitions) dramatically raised the level of play on the Bulls back in the late 80s. The lesson is that a team's culture ultimately reflects the caliber of the players on the team. Your culture looks good when your players are good. The problem with the Wolves is that the team is comprised of lousy players other than KAT. Culver's a great, hard-working player, but he's not good. Okogie's a great, high-energy, hard-working player as well as a excellent defender, but he's a horrific offensive player. You'd think we'd have a great culture with two stand-up, hard-working guys like that, right? DLO is a slow, unathletic ball-stopper on the offensive end and a terrible defender, but that's who he's always been in his five prior seasons. Bottom line is that these guys just aren't very good. It's really that simple.
But we shouldn't be surprised. Culver was a poor 3-point shooter coming out of college and scouting reports at the time referred to his perimeter shot as broken. So what did we expect? Edwards was a 40% FG shooter and a 29% 3-point shooter in college. That's exactly what he his now with the Wolves. So why is anyone surprised? There's a myth that players typically improve their shooting from college to the NBA. That's generally not the case. We know DLO's history as a poor defender whose teams generally performed worse with him on the court than off the court. So we shouldn't be surprised when he doesn't look like a pillar of a contender. Players who have been questionable for 5 seasons in the NBA don't typically become franchise pillars in their 6th or 7th seasons.
The Wolves have had bad PBOs making bad players personnel decisions. Rosas is no exception. In fact, he's right there with David Kahn. Bad player-personnel decisions result in bad teams that lose a lot. Teams that play poorly and lose have bad cultures. Turn the losing around and you change the culture. But you can't fix the losing until you start making good player personnel decisions. Edwards may yet turn out to be a really good draft decision by Rosas. But so far, he looks like the player he was in college and that shouldn't surprise any of us. And it's not like he was engulfed in Timberwolves culture while in college.
The Wolves could have drafted LaMello Ball. He wouldn't have been my choice, but it's clear he would have been a great choice. It was Gersson's job to get it right, but he didn't. Rosas could have traded down and drafted Haliburton, in which case he could have acquired other valuable assets or players, but he didn't. The year before, he could have stayed put and drafted Tyler Herro, which is what Cam would have done. Then he could have traded Saric for some other decent asset or player, but he didn't. PJ Washington was another player he could have drafted that year. The Knicks were looking to unload Julius Randle this past offseason and it's likely Rosas could have acquired him for no more than he gave up to get Rubio. The Pistons let Christian Wood walk, so it's clear it wouldn't have taken much to get him in a sign-and-trade deal - James Johnson and what we gave up for Rubio for example. Bobby Portis was available as a free agent this past offseason for a lot less than Rosas decided to pay Juancho. That's all on Rosas. Meanwhile, we can look back at Thibs taking Dunn instead of Murray and taking Justin Patton instead of John Collins, Jarret Allen or OG Anunoby. Then of course, there was Flip selling for cash a pick he could have used to draft Rudy Gobert. As we all know, the list goes on.
So there's your bad culture. It's the sum total of a lot of horrible player personnel decisions, which have produced teams that haven't had players good enough to win.
